Underground Never Dies! describes the informal network of fans, bands, labels and writers who stayed connected through postal mail and xeroxed 50-page fanzines. This substituted for the huge media network and financial power of the major labels, who soon found themselves wishing they had an underground also.

With a five-track audio sample of the LP of rarities that accompanies the book, and a 3-page preview of the book itself, the following review digs into the first half of the book:

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Pause for a minute: what does being “underground” actually mean nowadays? Especially now that the immediacy of the internet has shrunk our world so that someone on the other side of the friggin’ planet can know what kind of socks you’re wearing that day… Is the underground an outdated concept? A romantic vision of what once was the metal scene? An illusion? If you’re still looking for an answer, Underground Never Dies! provides copious reasons why, as elusive as it may be, the notion of “underground” is still part of music’s DNA.

This juggernaut of a book is more than ”just” a book. Not only is it one of the most complete and impressive compendiums of flyers, pictures, zines and reviews from the mid-80s until the early 90s – a/k/a the ”golden years” of extreme underground metal – but it’s also a general overview of a time when internet and viral promotion wasn’t even a sci-fi concept. When everything happened through mail or word-of-mouth and a very scattered secret society of misfits built piece by piece a gigantic network that remains to this day the very foundation of the music we all love and worship.

With a cover by Mark Riddick and edited by longstanding Grinder Magazine publisher and respected figure Andrés Padilla - who already did a fantastic job on the Retrospectiva al Metal Chileno (1983-1993) – the book describes the underground “as devotion and commitment. Musically, it is the opposite of establishment and a giant ‘fuck you’ to the system.” It may have taken more than three years to put together those 500 pages but the result is nothing but outstanding. Uniting all of metal’s sub-genres under one flag (of hate) and with testimonials from Chris Reifert (AUTOPSY), Erik Danielsson (WATAIN) and Alan Moses (Glorious Times), Underground Never Dies! is way more than ”just” a book. It’s a monument dedicated to where the heart of REAL metal always beats.